“..MPs need to get their heads around new transparency for their allowances but it will ensure more careful use of taxpayer money, Prime Minister John Key says.
ACT leader Rodney Hide will write out a cheque for nearly $12,000 today ..
.. after making a grovelling apology for his “casual” use of taxpayer funds to take his girlfriend overseas – including a holiday in Hawaii.
But he says it is up to ACT founder Sir Roger Douglas to decide whether to repay the thousands in taxpayer funds he spent flying himself and his wife business class to Britain for a holiday.
Mr Hide racked up $11,952 in taxpayer-funded air travel for Louise Crome to accompany him on an official trip to Britain, Canada and the United States.
He used his 90 per cent travel subsidy to pay her fare ..
.. thus getting around the edict from Prime Minister John Key that ministers who take their partners on overseas business should not use their ministerial travel allowances.
Mr Hide spent a further $10,000 on flying to Hawaii with Ms Crome, but repaid that last week after deciding it could not be justified, even if it was lawful.
Mr Hide, who will have repaid nearly $22,000 including today’s cheque, issued a humiliating apology for the spending ..
.. saying he had been blinded by the comforts of office.
“You do get used to the job and you get very generously provided for … it’s a hard thing for anyone to admit that they stuffed up.
“I can well understand hard-working Kiwis, particularly in these tough economic times, being appalled at me taking an overseas trip at their expense, even though it was within the rules.”
Prime Minister John Key Key today said MPs needed to accept that while they were spending within the rules ..
.. transparency would change how they operated..”
go to source/story>>MPs ‘need to justify use of allowances’ – PM | Stuff.co.nz
